


our beloved city: in the case of xian

by Anonymous



Series: project santa carina [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Series: project santa carina [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121522
Collections: Anonymous





	our beloved city: in the case of xian

Xian wakes up, and thinks for the millionth time that she should work from home instead of trudging to the shared office. 

But she's already paid the fee for the month, and she can't let that go to waste— not to mention that she inevitably gets less productive at home, which just won't do, when she has three projects close to deadline. 

So she rolls out of the bed, taking the walking cane on the nightstand, and goes to the living room.

Pa's already left for his own gig; he's the excessively diligent first gen immigrant type (even though he's actually third gen), so he always starts work earlier than necessary, claiming that extra bit of effort is what leads to success.

She's thinking of grabbing a Nutrix shake pack to drink on the subway, but there's a lid-covered bowl sitting on the table. 

It reads,

_Eat well and stay healthy! Love you._   
_-Dad_

She doesn't really have the energy to smile as she puts the bowl in the microwave.

But the soup certainly tastes far, far better than the protein shakes. 

* * *

They say you get what you pay for, and she feels it every morning as she gets to the subway station.

Her wheelchair is a really cheap one, bought on short notice once she realized she couldn't walk longer distances anymore, and god damn, it's not great. She should probably order a better, maybe custom-fit one, but the cost that goes into that is almost a month's worth of rent; if she has that kind of money, she'd rather save it, as emergency fund, since the current one still does the bare minimum of what it's supposed to do.

Right as she's thinking that, she passes by an ad from Kedves Inc. advertising "cutting-edge stem cell rehab therapy" and "the best exoskeletons on the market, built for convenience and comfort" starting at the "low cost of one thousand."

Almost too on the nose, but hey, it's not as though subway-using plebs like her are the target demographic for those services and products. (Which does beg the question of why they put those ads at the station, but her brain power is too precious to be spent pondering that.)

And no, she's not going to take a loan to "make her dreams possible," she internally grumbles, flagging the annoying spam emails in her inbox while waiting at the platform.

* * *

The monkey pen— office— appears to be about halfway filled when she arrives, but it's difficult to tell exactly, with the dividers in place. 

(They weren't originally there, since it was designed as an open office, but they squeezed money together to buy some a year ago, because nobody here wants to keep looking at other people while they work.)

(That was also the first and last time she spoke to the other code monkeys for more than five minutes.)

"Morning."

"Morning."

She exchanges the short obligatory greeting with her neighbor, who began working here last week and doesn't seem to be a creep like the dude who was there before. There's this other new chick who's probably a sex pest, but that one sits way across the office, so it's someone else's problem, for the most part. 

The bottle of Adderall XR gets passed around about thirty minutes in, and that's all the human interaction most of them will have for the day. There are always the few social butterflies who try to chat up and make friends at first, of course, but most catch on pretty quickly that this isn't that kind of place.

"Good morning, Xian!"

"..."

And she has no obligation to entertain those who keep trying. 

"Is the project going well?"

"..."

After all, it's not like they're co-workers. 

"Sheesh, cold as usual."

"..."

They're just individuals who happen to find clients through the same app and rent the same office space through yet another app (which has the same parent company as the first one).

What others around her do— why they show up, why they stay, why they disappear— is none of her concern.

"Anyway, good luck on the deadlines!"

"...Mhm."

It's a complete bullshit of an excuse, and it's what she needs to tell herself to get through this day, the next, and countless more ones after that.

* * *

The drug starts to wear off around six. She's suddenly hungry and sleepy at once, but the projects are far from done; there's no way she'll finish before the curfew kicks into effect for non-essential workers, so once again, staying at the office overnight it is. 

There's also a "peaceful protest" scheduled for seven or something, according to the news headlines she'll never click on; what that really means is that it's going to be peaceful for about thirty minutes, but then one of the gangs will show up, then the other, and it's inevitably going to result in a big gory media spectacle all night long. 

Tomorrow morning, she'll scroll past more headlines from Santa Carina Post and Santa Carina Times that boil down to "here's why one gang is good and the other isn't, please give us clicks for giving the same lukewarm takes we already pissed out a million times before." People will be agitated and alarmed for a few days, saying that something has to change, that things can't continue like this— but it can, it has, and it will, evidenced by the fact they'll all forget as soon as it stops being in the headlines, and repeat the cycle all over again later.

"I'll get going now."

"..."

"See you."

"Yeah."

There are always some monkeys who check out of the pen right before the regularly-scheduled mass chaos.

Some will show up again, looking a little worse for wear, others won't. 

It doesn't matter to her either way. 

She takes out a Nutrix shake from the drawer and chugs it down before popping on a neck pillow. There is a lounge-slash-kitchen-slash-nap room, but it's close to the sex pest's desk, so better be safe than sorry.

Before she closes her eyes, she takes out her phone and messages, 

_dad_   
_protests tonight_   
_i know youre an essential worker and all but get home before the curfew ok?_   
_i have to stay to finish work, dont worry though, i'll still get some sleep_

She forces herself to stay awake long enough to see the three dots at the bottom of the screen turn into a,

_No worries, I will!_   
_You stay safe too_   
_Love you!_

followed up by several cutesy emojis and stickers from a magical girl show she used to be obsessed with many, many years ago.

She falls asleep trying to remember what else she used to like.

* * *

* * *

_Xian hasn't had dreams in many years, only nightmares._

_Hospital rooms, professional voices giving instructions, blood spilling out of her nose and ears and mouth and eyes._

_Kids and their hushed whispers behind her back, adults and their eternal dodging of her questions, her cries for help._

_Eviction notices, overdue bills, emergencies, accidents, Pa not coming home._

_But that evening, her subconscious comes up with an oddly comforting vision._

_"Xian."_

_Her old high school building has been blown apart, its remains going up in flames, exactly how she used to fantasize._

_"Look, Xian."_

_Except it's not just her school— the whole city is burning, and she's at the shore, marvelling at how the fire reflects in the night ocean._

_And **he** is next to her, laughing and pumping his fists like this is one of the football matches he dragged her to back then._

_"Pretty, isn't it? Let's take a photo!"_

_He's switching to the front camera, and she's usually not the one for taking selfies, but hey, this is the least she can do in exchange for his help._

_(Help with what?)_

_(With burning the city, probably, but did they really manage to do that on their own?)_

_(Oh well, it doesn't matter.)_

_"Say cheese~"_

_"Cheese, I guess."_

_The camera snaps. He comes out looking as photogenic as ever, she figures she looks okay enough. They sit at the docks while editing the photo with filters and stickers; he thinks it would be funny to add fire emojis, she thinks it's redundant._

_Once that's done and he's sent the photo to her, they lay back and look at the sky, trying to make out the constellations and the shapes in the smoke._

_"I told you staying alive would be worth it," he says._

_"Yeah," she agrees._

_And for the first time in a long while, she is smiling, not out of obligation or to hide anything, but because she feels content with life, with existence—_

* * *

* * *

—and then she wakes up to the buzzing of her phone against the desk, the screen displaying what seems to be a million missed calls and notifications. Her fingers are cold and stiff and clumsy as she unlocks the phone, slipping and clicking on the news app instead of the message app. 

_"A strong case for strengthening domestic terror bills..."_

The goddamn livestream at the top starts automatically, the voices of some good-for-nothing commentators babbling over the video, but she doesn't even register it.

_"...extremists are marching down to seventh street right now,"_

Because the building serving as set piece as the crowds go at each other's throats, bullets and grenades and Molotovs taking flight in the night air,

_"They're clashing, oh, they've got— they've got bombs, they— **WATCH OUT!!!** "_

is her apartment. 


End file.
